India needs 40,000 mw nuclear power. The recent agreement with United States will help. India is planning to import nuclear reactors and exploit its thorium reserves to achieve the target of 40,000 mw nuclear power.

Currently India has 14 operating nuclear reactors and eight more under construction, all of which would lead to an installed nuclear power capacity of 8,000 mw by the year 2010.

In their Independence Day messages to the nation, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh touched on nuclear power. President Kalam spoke of the need to continue efforts to harness thorium, while Singh said India could generate an extra 40,000 mw of nuclear power in the next 10 years.

India is already engaged in three-stage nuclear programme aimed at ultimately converting thorium to uranium for power reactors. "India has to strike a balance between reactor imports and the vigorous pursuit of the indigenous programme," said Dr A.N. Prasad, a nuclear engineer and former director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.

"For long-term energy security, we'll have to ensure that economic and human resources continue to be available for the indigenous programme. The import of reactors would only meet energy needs in the near future," he said.

India's nuclear programme is based on a combination of natural uranium, plutonium extracted from spent fuel and, eventually, thorium.

"If we manage to exploit thorium in a big way, we'll be sitting on top of the world," Prasad said. India has vast reserves of thorium on the coast of Kerala that can be converted through special reactors into uranium for power generation.

"No one else is pursuing thorium anywhere else in the world," said Ratan Sinha, head of the reactor engineering division at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. – India Daily